


hardly minimalist, nor practical. certainly functional.

by sybilius



Series: a hustler, a spy, and a professional assassin walk into a bar [3]
Category: MacGyver (TV 1985)
Genre: Anxiety, Crossdressing, Curtain Fic, Fluff, Hoarding, I do what I want, I just want Murdoc to have nice things, Lowkey genderfluid murdoc vibes, M/M, Multi, Murdoc plays the piano, Piano, Polyamory, Supportive Relationships, This is relentless fluff which is very off brand for me and you know what
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:55:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22193653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sybilius/pseuds/sybilius
Summary: Murdoc faces perhaps the most terrifying challenge of his most illustrious career and all that came after it.Moving in with his lovers; one ex-nemesis, and his chatty adorable longtime friend.
Relationships: Jack Dalton/Angus MacGyver/Murdoc (MacGyver TV 1985)
Series: a hustler, a spy, and a professional assassin walk into a bar [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1500872
Comments: 5
Kudos: 7





	hardly minimalist, nor practical. certainly functional.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote fucking curtainfic about this trash can assassin man and his unlikely boyfriends.
> 
> I blame this entirely on the magnificent fic 'O My Enemy' which is Macdoc and made me go "PERFECT." and also "now I want 10000 hugs for Murdoc." go read it, it's amazing.

A truly incredible notion, how little the state of his apartment has changed in the year or so that Murdoc has been...involved, should he put it? With MacGyver  _ and _ Dalton, no less. Or Jack, rather. 

He picks up an older floral lace shirt, one which he in fact  _ had _ used recently. It served his employer’s purposes to have a woman in the secretary’s desk when it would set the clients at ease. And the practice is nice to keep in hand. At least gives some measure of purpose to the mountain of clothes in the bedroom. 

The weapons on the other hand, he’s barely began to redistribute. Not to mention the books, which he is disturbed to realize he hardly remembered buying or reading, nor the excess of ostentatious effects that were ever so fitting in that crumbling mansion he bought…

"Hey Murdoc! These real gold?" 

Murdoc pokes his head out of the bedroom, to see Jack brandishing a candlestick excitedly, "you know what these are worth? Where did you get em?"

"...don't particularly remember." 

"Oh well, you want to keep em, I'm sure we could find somewhere in Mac's house they'd fit…" Jack's uncertainty is clear enough, but it did spark remembrance of when he purchased them. For that dinner set at MacGyver's home. Arguably the scene where it all began. 

"Keep one. If you find a way to sell any others, that's fine by me."

"Putting it in the discard box, only this one is for me! Jack box. Heh," Jack scrawls his name on the side. 

Murdoc nods, turning his attention back to the pile of clothes. He offered that deal to MacGyver, when he was going through their plans. There would be three types of items, those to be discarded (or sold at a substantial markup, if Jack would have his way), those to be stored in Jack's hangar, and those to end up in the small space of MacGyver's houseboat. 

Moving in. It is truly dizzying to think about. And yet, three times the past week he's woken with Jack's breath next to his ear, or fallen asleep on the couch next to MacGyver while watching one of those plotless westerns. What could possibly change?

For one: he would be there. That changed everything. 

"Hey you know, it's too bad Mac is busy with Phoenix stuff. Could use his energy lifting up all these boxes."

"Yes, a pity," Murdoc murmurs distractedly, finding yet another Beretta amongst the lace and cufflinks. Unloaded, thankfully. Unlike the previous two. 

Jack stops a moment, a slight frown on his face, "This is one of your ' _ things',  _ isn't it?" .

"My... _ things _ , Dalton?"

"Oh see, I got you, you only call me Dalton when I  _ get  _ you," Jack stuffs the marker in his pocket, "I must be in love with you, coming over to kiss you making that sour face and holding a gun."

"...you're far too ridiculous for anyone to want to kill,  _ Dalton _ ," he lets the syllables snap that time, ridiculousness to match as Jack crosses the room. 

Murdoc does drop the gun to let Jack frame his face with his hands, allowing Murdoc the space to hide in warm lips and a brash laugh. And to his credit, Jack steps away with a wink. Letting Murdoc know he doesn't  _ have _ to explain himself. 

But at this point, Murdoc supposes he might as well. 

"It's not as if I didn't want to have MacGyver along. Simply that...well, he's made it clear what his thoughts are on my possessions."

"He has?"

"You aren't with us  _ all  _ the time, Jack."

"No I mean...what are you thinking he's thinking?" 

"That I should get rid of it all, I suppose?" 

"Oh. Yeah, he's like that. Always saying that about whatever plane I've bought next, you know? I just ignore him and explain to him how it's gonna make tons of money once he's fixed it up. And they're always beautiful things, like my Sharon," he sighs, probably seeing that rusty floatplane in his mind’s eye. Murdoc privately agrees with MacGyver’s protests there, but still, Jack’s sympathies aren’t unappreciated. 

Murdoc picks up a round object on the ground. Hamster wheel. He’s never owned a hamster. See, the difficulty is, he’s not quite sure what he wants these objects for at all. He’s sure that getting rid of them sounds distressing, and keeping them even more so. That doesn’t help with MacGyver’s convictions. 

“And besides, you know Mac, he likes having projects, things to fix. Figure I’m doing him a favor there, right?” Jack winks, utterly cheeky as always.

“I don’t particularly want my space ‘fixed’ to whatever MacGyver considers it as such,” that much, Murdoc is sure of. 

“Makes sense. Well you know, anything doesn’t fit, you know where it’ll go! Safe and sound at Dalton air! Say, d’you think I could use this silver tray table? Maybe get a first class in after we stop doing cargo only-- oh, say!” 

Jack has pulled a velvet curtain off the baby grand piano underneath all the debris. Murdoc feels the first twinge of possessiveness in seeing his reflection in its lacquered black. Yes, he very much remembers why he bought this. 

“What are you thinking for this thing?” 

Murdoc pulls the cover off the keys near-reverently, only half listening to Jack. He touches the middle C key carefully. It rings discordant. The surreal elation he felt upon uncovering it pops like a soap bubble. 

“...it’s very out of tune. Will be expensive to move.”

“Yeah, but it’s a pretty thing though, innit? You said you play, right? Hell, I bet Mac could tune it, if you give him enough time--”

“I would be opposed to any form of tinkering on a Steinway. Besides, I’m sure he has more than enough projects.”

“Sounds like you’re protective of her, she got a name?”

“...Claudius,” It would seem silly, admitting that name to MacGyver. But since Jack asked, and would likely have no idea of the context...

“Not a lady piano, huh? Not that I ever owned a piano, most I ever played was a beat-up sax. But say, we’ll figure out what to do with this after you tell me what’s to be done with all the silverware, huh? Put it all together and I think we could really attract some high-class people to fly at Dalton Air, say maybe you could cook…?”

Murdoc slowly closes the piano, settled by listening to Dalton prattle. What did it matter, where Claud-- where the piano ended up, really? It's been years since Murdoc even pulled off the piano’s velvet. 

Still, when they come across an old folio of Chopin, Murdoc does have at least one object to start a box marked to take home. 

  
  


* * *

The bedsprings creak slightly under his knees. No dressings on it, even when he had it on the floor at his apartment, there was at least a sheet overtop, a thick blanket. 

But here it is, now. In the light of the A-frame window, the tiny space he could call his own amongst all of his lovers’ accoutrements. And all he’s brought is a single sizeable box filled with books, and his mattress. 

He’s even second guessing that, now. The room used to function as a study of sorts, a neat desk in the corner that MacGyver hardly used. Perhaps it would better serve as that again; someplace for spare files that he has to sort through when casework gets to be too much. Someplace to read. 

And for that matter, what purpose would a second bed serve? Murdoc brings his knees up to his chest. He spends most nights sleeping with Jack, would it be so odious to make that all of them? Does he really need  _ this _ bed in particular, so laden with all the nights spent setting death traps, falling asleep alone, waking with a draft running through his bones....

But then, he’s had the mattress a long time. Long enough for him to have slept with it shoved under the piano, three other living spaces before. Was time really a reason to keep things? Or was it privacy, that made him dig his fingers into the mattress? Fear of something he wanted? He was just barely beginning to understand that--

“Only one box?”

MacGyver’s voice, light and clear breaks through Murdoc’s fervid thoughts. He straightens, looking the home’s owner in the eye. 

“Were you expecting more?” 

“Yeah-- you know we could make space for more than that, not much, but--”

“There’s no need.” Murdoc cuts him off smoothly. 

“...that’s really all you wanted from that?”

“Is it so hard to believe?” his voice is getting sharper, dangerously so. He very much doesn’t  _ want _ to have a fit over MacGyver, that would absolutely not be beginning his living here on a good note --

“...Okay. Do you want something to drink?”

The tension falls out of Murdoc’s shoulders, leaving him feeling a bit small and ashamed, “Tea, if you could.”

“Alright.” 

Murdoc flops backwards on the bed once MacGyver is down the stairs, wishing for...well, any feeling, apart from this one. Most people were excited to move in with their lovers, he assumes.

Most people don’t count their lovers among the people they have tried to kill.

Well, that is just MacGyver in that number. All others on that list he succeeded in killing handily. Murdoc rolls over in the bed. The quilt on Dalton’s bed, all mussed and littered with a few airplane magazines is visible with the door open. He gets up, and as he’s often done when he decides to read until Dalton returns home, stacks the magazines next to the bed, and rights the quilt into a neat surface. This bed sits not on the floor, but on a huge frame, with drawers at the front. Large enough for three, when it suited them. 

Murdoc sits on the edge of the bed, contemplating whether to dig through the box for his copy of  _ The Name of the Rose _ . It’s then he hears the creak of the steps and freezes, wondering whether to return to what ought to be his bed.

“Murdoc?”

“In here,” Murdoc replies softly. MacGyver pokes his head in, two steaming mugs in his hands, “I think I wish to get rid of the bed as well.”

“If that’s what you want,” MacGyver sits next to him carefully, offering him the mug with NHL emblazoned on the side. Since learning the letters in fact, did not stand for  _ no-homicide league _ , it has become his mug of choice in the household. Though. Those teacups of his did end up in a different box at Dalton’s hangar.

Murdoc sips the tea carefully, “You know how I am about things I want.”

“Yeah. Birds of a feather,” he slips his free arm around Murdoc, which Murdoc naturally leans into. 

Murdoc has spoken about this topic many times, both guarded and vulnerable with MacGyver, and more and less embarrassingly, with Dr. Chandrasekhar, his therapist of the past three months. That was a deal MacGyver had made with him. And, Murdoc supposes, he with MacGyver. 

Murdoc privately wonders if MacGyver has similar conversations with his own therapist, circling around the way MacGyver so easily counts himself out when he and Jack are riffing off each other. Is the fact that MacGyver  _ could _ be in this bed every night if he wished, and yet he still chooses to sleep on the couch worth remark?

Murdoc purses his lips, feeling the warmth radiating from his lover. Thinking on how easy it is for MacGyver to be present when either of them seems close to falling apart. 

Murdoc takes a sip of his tea. He still wonders if he might fall apart now. 

“You wanna talk about it?”

“I don’t know. I’ve accumulated just. So much utter  _ garbage _ . I have not the foggiest notion whether I bought it to feel better, as a distraction, or whether the act of buying made me feel worse then, and so I pursued it in earnest. Or just that spending the money meant there was reason to do another job,” Murdoc mumbles the last words quietly. He isn’t ashamed. But he often wonders if MacGyver is, “I figured, I suppose, money to be a good soldier, will on.”

He waits, MacGyver catching up a beat later. His brow furrows above his lovely blue eyes, “I don’t know that one.”

“It’s from  _ The Merry Wives of Windsor _ . But it hardly matters. The truth of it is, all the homes I tried to fill with possessions, none of which it seems I ever particularly wanted.”

MacGyver squeezes his arm, “Well, it is just stuff. If you really don’t want any of it...you can always get more another time.” 

“I’ll admit, I really don’t think I want that mattress. The room would serve better as a study. Even if it does mean I spend all my nights sleeping with Jack.”

“Is that something you want?”

Murdoc considers this. Nearly swallows back the words, but reaches for the practiced ones instead, “Yes. I believe it is something I want.”

And then he adds, much more quietly, “I prefer sleeping with company.”

MacGyver’s face splits into a wry grin. He sets down his tea on the ground, frames Murdoc’s face with his hands, and kisses him gently on the lips.

“Proud of you. That sounded hard to admit.”

Murdoc very nearly rolls his eyes, leaning into his former nemesis’ touch, “You’re such a boy scout. In any case. How are you taking all of this? I know Jack has lived here off and on for years, but evidently this is quite different.” 

MacGyver’s hand settles around his shoulder, his lips turned down in contemplation, “Okay for now, I think. I got worries, but most of them are those we can work out in time. And there’s a lot of good points to it.”

Murdoc snorts derisively, “How’s that, me bringing utter chaos to your home?”

“Well, there’s this,” MacGyver squeezes him once, “Also you cook better than Jack does. And it’s nice reading with you, we’ll be able to do that more. Oh, and--”

He stops, turning to Murdoc. Murdoc feels his cheeks burn, realizing he’s drawn his feet up on to the bed, his heart beating double time. Being wanted. Perhaps worse than wanting things, but so much better just the same --

“You’re doing that thing again, uh, shoot, I’m sorry. It’s okay, I mean--”

“Jack said something similar, you know. I’m all right.”

“Do you want me to let go? I don’t think I should but I will if you want me to. 

“I don’t want you to. And so I do. Please don’t let go.” 

But against all odds, MacGyver seems to understand. Holds him for minutes longer, perhaps even tens of minutes, until Murdoc nearly feels he could fall asleep just like this. 

And then they get up, and without needing to say a word to each other, carry the bare mattress downstairs. 

* * *

The quilt fans out, settles evenly over the covers of the empty bed. The evening before so warm and welcoming, Murdoc reflects. But Jack keeps unusual hours, some of which have him rolling out of bed at four in the morning. The life of a pilot. 

By now it’s been a few night’s sleeps in Jack’s bed. Could he call it Jack’s bed? Well they bought a king sized on Jack’s insistence. Murdoc smooths over the covers, turning to get his briefcase from the room he supposed he could call his study. 

An armoire that he’d uncovered, filled with a subset of various disguises, including the sharp-cut women’s business suit he wore today. He checks his lipstick in the mirror, the way his makeup softens his sharp jaw. 

He looks a stranger. But he might as well be the one who belongs here. That’s the mantra he repeats to himself. 

Work that day passes with little to report. Cropping through some of the photos that comprised the last cheater’s case, compiling the report to give to their client. Two new cases came through the door, neither of which gave his disguise a second glance. That meant they’d be simple cases to tackle, likely no need for him to gather background information or run interference for his employer. 

When he returns, briefcase light with the usual stack of a few papers rather than the old weight of several firearms, the left turn to the dockside of town is almost automatic. Nevertheless, when he turns the corner, he feels an anxious buzz begin along his jaw. 

MacGyver would give platitudes. His home needn’t be a place he should fear. Yes, but that was the case, or not quite. No, he didn’t want to return to his old apartment. He taps his hand on the wheel, nearly missing the red light ahead. 

Jack, dear Jack, would probably tell stories about all the times he ended up on MacGyver’s door. About how it wasn’t all bad, that they were close at least, and Mac always was a nice view in the mornings. Whether that hurt or not. 

Birds of a feather indeed. Murdoc has only learned in bits and pieces, sweeping anecdotes meant to amuse, just how much Jack Dalton nursed his presumed unrequited feelings for MacGyver, prior to his arrival. 

Jack did say once, drunk, but without a single twitch to his eye, that Murdoc was the best and worst thing that ever happened to them. He amended worst, of course, being of the meaning that he once called himself MacGyver’s nemesis--

The car behind him honks its horn. Murdoc starts in the car, then mumbles a curse to himself and continues the drive home. 

Surprisingly, the door is locked when he arrives. Murdoc frowns, wondering if this is something he should consider suspicious. Considering one of them is still a spy, and HIT still does have a few agents that the Phoenix Foundation was unable to nab…

He's halfway around scaling the side of MacGyver's houseboat when he catches Jack's chipper voice.

"You know we could always just eat at the counter every night--" 

"I don't think he'd like that much, you know? All those fancy dinners he makes--" 

Murdoc ducks underneath the window, carefully examining the seam of the screen. This would be easier to do in looser slacks...however. Yes, it could be popped out with very little effort. He steadies his own breath, trying not to linger too long. There is no danger. It's unbecoming to spy then, as such. 

He trusts them. 

"Mac, you're worrying too much, he's going to love this. You two can play  _ Hometime _ when he gets back."

"Or, perhaps, now?" 

Jack lets out a yell, and MacGyver starts, but just laughs, seeing Murdoc on the window sill, screen and lace hat in hand. It's then that Murdoc notices what's different about the room, everything thrown around and spacious.

"Oh." His eyes fall on Claudius, tucked in the corner, “I. I didn’t think it would fit.”

He grips harder onto the window sill, hardly believing his eyes, or luck. How  _ had _ they done this? 

“Made it fit. Jack said it would mean a lot to you. Plus, I figured we could get a smaller table, if we have to. Maybe I’ll take this one apart to half size, not like we host a lot of dinner parties.”

Murdoc blinks, walking across the room as if half in a dream. He slides open the cover carefully -- could they have gotten it tuned? He was out all day. 

The C key rings clear like new. Murdoc lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, sits down at the bench. When he looks back to his lovers, they seem as nervous as he feels.

He smiles weakly, “Thank you. Both of you.”

“This is all right? You like it here?” MacGyver asks, gentle but with his nervousness evident.

Murdoc nods slowly, “So much that I hardly know what to say.”

“Sooo, why don’t you play something then?”

Murdoc’s fingers find the chords as if he’d just played the piece yesterday. The first nocturne he learned, the first on this particular piano -- Chopin’s twentieth, C sharp minor. He’d always played it sharper, leaning hard into the trills, pushing the  _ pastorale _ into an almost pagan franticness. But the gentle slide, back again into melancholy -- the return of the main theme -- it’s always caught him by the throat. 

“I first bought Claudius when I moved into a place of my own. After I’d...graduated my apprenticeship, shall we say,” Murdoc lets his hands fall into his lap with a grimace. He doesn’t much like to linger on the time he spent with Nicholas Helman. Necessary. That’s the only word that needs to be said about it.

“Claudius. The usurper, huh,” MacGyver studies him carefully, and there’s a question in it, for certain. But there’s also kindness, the knowledge that if he avoided the question, MacGyver would simply nod. Maybe offer him tea. 

“...the character always reminded me of Nicholas,” invoking his name. To MacGyver no less. But MacGyver just nods and squeezes his shoulder once. 

“Who wrong the song?”

“Chopin. Nocturne in C sharp minor.” 

“It was pretty caposhi!” Jack nods enthusiastically. Murdoc blinks. 

“...excuse me?”

“Sorry, I mean it’s cool! I mean a bit heavy, but --” Jack throws up his hands as MacGyver joins in staring, “Wha-at, not all of us spent the 70s holed up fixing radios! It was a thing.” 

Murdoc shakes his head, and to avoid seeking an acerbic line from Shakespeare, starts to play something he knows Jack will recognize. A cheery rag from Joplin himself, to entertain the both of them. 

“You know what? I’d have thought you’d have called this song beneath you,” MacGyver hums after a short period of bobbing his head. 

“Perhaps,” Murdoc smiles to himself as he plays, “Perhaps one never forgets learning it, knows the utility of having a familiar tune to play out with. Perhaps I remember that lurid jack-in-the-box in Jack’s office that plays it.”

“Jack! I thought you were going to give that to the kid!”

“It’s my lucky charm!”   


“You say that about anything you own that isn’t a plane! You say that about your planes!”

“Oy. You know owning things isn’t a crime?”

Just Murdoc’s luck that he comes to the end of the tune in time for  _ that _ to be met with silence. And then Jack glances to him pointedly and MacGyver-- 

“Oh. Yeah, it isn’t. I, um. Sorry if I made you feel differently. Both of you,” MacGyver scratches the back of his head, looking abashed. Murdoc leaves off from the keyboard, taking his calloused hand, kissing it gently.

“It’s all right. I know you meant well. My relationship to my possessions is hardly...healthy.”

“Work in progress,” MacGyver says faintly, looking a bit dazed. He leans down to kiss Murdoc on the lips, just briefly. Just as tempting as Murdoc had always imagined, but with far more familiarity. 

“Yes. Well. You two are much that is worth working for.”

“Okay you can’t  _ say _ things like that without letting me kiss you too,” Jack nudges beside him on the piano bench, leaning in to kiss his cheek. Murdoc meets him with his lips-- it’s often easy for them to get carried away. Jack chuckles underneath him.

“Love the new lipstick.”

"I will endeavor to wear it more often, then,” Murdoc pulls back, his hands ever drawn to the piano. An old love still yet demands his attention. 

“So, any further requests? I expect I’ll be playing for quite a bit after dinner,” in fact, his fingers are already finding an old Rachmaninoff. They’ll be time enough for Jack’s suggestion of  _ Take Five _ , which he’ll have to experiment around learning. And for MacGyver, something simply titled  _ Madrigal _ . He’ll sort out the details later. 

For now, there is the echo of  _ Prelude in C Sharp Minor _ against the walls and windows, the murmur of his lover’s voices a perfect background cacophony. It feels like, perhaps--- he’s arrived home at last. 

**Author's Note:**

> The mention of Murdoc sleeping under the piano is a reference to an anecdote told by a friend of mine! Not so implausible, having a piano in a studio apartment ;) 
> 
> Here are a few links to the songs that Murdoc plays at the end:
> 
> [Nocturne 20 in C sharp Minor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9oQEa-d5rU). I imagine Murdoc playing this distinctly unhinged. 
> 
> [The Entertainer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPmruHc4S9Q). 
> 
> [Prelude in C sharp Minor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCm9O2KNEX4). This song just rather IS unhinged, I've alwasy thought of it as a Murdoc piece. 
> 
> Why does Murdoc love C sharp minor so much? Dunno! Maybe I'll find out from him another time :) 
> 
> Thank you for reading this fluff!!! Comments always welcome!


End file.
